The Mysteries Of The Olive Tree

Moshe Kempinski

Israel is being challenged by an American President that believes so deeply
in the power of words that he has forgotten the “power of truth”.

Israel is facing a European continent that is slowly sinking under the
tsunami of radical Islam and has lost the “power of discernment”.

We are also dealing with Israeli leadership that attempts to combat the
pressure but lacking the spiritual eyes of faith makes compromise with
reality.

The storm is brewing and the pressure is growing. The missing light that
would help us navigate through this darkness is the light of the Temple
menorah .Its flickering flame still burns in the hearts of those who have
not lost their connection to their Divine destiny. Yet there are many that
are trying to extinguish those flickering embers as well. It is not
happenstance that the temple menorah was chosen to be the official symbol
of the state of Israel. There were few amongst those that chose it in the
1940’s that knew that the emblem was actually linked to a prophecy of a
menorah in the book of Zecharayah, . In that prophecy we are told of a
vision of a menorah with an olive tree on either side of it and the the
menorah is being fed with olive oil from these branches

And he said unto me: "What do you see ?" And I said: "I have seen, and
behold a menorah all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, with its
seven lamps....and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the
bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof." .( Zecharayah 4:1-6 )

There is a mysterious strength and lesson being revealed in the olive tree
and its oil in these verses.

Every morning as I trudge up the little hill from my synagogue to the
entrance into my building, I always feel a sense of exhilaration that I
tried to understand. Just before I enter the building, I walk under a wide,
expansive olive tree. As I stop under it and look to the west, I have an
uninterrupted view of the Jerusalem forest hills for as far as my eyes can
see. I usually take a deep breath and somehow feel filled and whole, even
for only a minute. At first, this began to happen without my being overtly
conscious of it, but after repeatedly sensing that feeling, I began to
ponder its meaning.

I thought of the midrash brought down in Tractate Menachot 51b: "Rabbi
Yehoshuah Ben Levi said: Why is Israel compared to an olive tree? Because
just as the leaves of an olive tree do not fall off either in summer or
winter. So, too, the Jewish people shall not be cast off, neither in this
world nor in the World to Come."


The olive tree also appears in the Midrash Shmot Rabbah (Tetzaveh 36)
discussing the verse in the book of Jeremiah (11:16) comparing the Jewish
people to an olive tree: "God called your name a green olive tree, fair
(zayit ra'anan) with goodly fruit." The midrash expounds offers insights
gleaned from this verse. Just as the olive oil does not get mixed together
with other fluids, so too the Jewish people will never disappear fully into
the cauldron of assimilation. In fact, in a miraculous fashion, despite
being agitated, persecuted and oppressed, the Jewish people, like the oil,
always rise to the top. They rise above those nations oppressing them and
retain their distinct and unique character.


Finally, our sages continue with another thought based on the same verse,
(Tractate Menachot 53bJ "Just as the purpose of the olive is the oil which
is extracted from it, says Rabbi Yitzchak, so too is the purpose of the
exile and all its events realized only after it reaches the end of its
processing." The classic commentator, the Maharsha, explains that only
after the olive has been crushed and pressed to extract its essence can the
fruit's potential truly be revealed.

So it seems that this is the process we are now witnessing

President Obama , Jimmy Carter, Iran's Ahmanidjad and the European union
are simply the olive press.The Olive tree is being crushed and pressed and
the groundwork is being laid for the next chapter of Jewish history